ANALYTIC CORE I. OVERVIEW OF CHANGES During the current funding cycle, the Analytic Core has had a new emphasis on analyses of rodent specimens, as well as continuing its assays for human research specimens. This change in emphasis was the result of changing needs of the Affiliate Investigators. Reflecting these changes, the previous Laboratory Core was renamed the Analytic Core, to indicate the intent to provide analytical support in parallel for investigators using both Human and Animal Studies Cores and other Affiliate Investigators with analytical needs for human or animal specimens. The major changes in the Core are: Development of additional assays for murine specimens Addition of a new senior faculty member and scheduled addition (July 2007) of a new junior faculty member, both as Associate Directors Initiation of metabolomics assays and planning for a Metabolomics Consortium at the University of Washington Mouse Specimen Assays, In response to requests from Affiliate Investigators performing murine studies, the Analytic Core has developed many new assays for murine specimens. These include: adaptation of routine (human) clinical assays to murine plasma; allowing analysis on standard high throughput and inexpensive clinical chemistry analyzers; development of lipid (cholesterol, triglyceride, free fatty acid) assays for mice; measurement of creatinine by high performance liquid chromatography in small serum samples; multiplexed assays for murine cytokines; measurement of murine leptin; and others. Because murine specimens have been most commonly obtained via difficult blood draws with blood collected in capillary tubes, the laboratory is exploring other techniques for blood collection and storage. Use of dried blood spots on filter paper is being investigated by the Analytic Core. This technique should facilitate the ability to obtain serial blood specimens (e.g., from tail nick incisions or facial vein drops rather than intravenous or retro-orbital collection) and to store and transfer specimens. Faculty Changes. There have been two faculty changes in the Analytic Core during the funding cycle. A new senior faculty member, Hossein Sadrzadeh, Ph.D., has become the Associate Director of the Analytic Core. A new junior faculty member, Andrew Hoofnagle, M.D., Ph.D., will be joining the Laboratory Medicine faculty as an Acting Assistant Professor by July 1, 2007. He will become an Associate Director of the Analytic Core at that time. These individuals will be described more fully in the Key Personnel section below. Mass Spectromety and Metabolomics Initiative. The CNRU Analytic Core faculty have begun to develop precise liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) assays for measurement of targeted small molecules, and the Analytic Core is developing plans to facilitate access to campus resources in metabolomics through the Core. The Analytic Core is focusing efforts on developing precise and high throughput assays for small molecules. Plans for developing a campus-wide Metabolomics Consortium to facilitate biomarker discovery are discussed later (see Section VII, 'Future Directions'.